SPACE ODYSSEY: STANLEY KUBRICK, ARTHUR C. CLARKE

AND THE MAKING OF A MASTERPIECE    

by Michael Benson

Be forewarned: Michael Benson instantly accepts and utterly insists upon 2001 as

masterpiece (see: book title), and will brook no other option. So, if you’re one of those

who doesn’t like, doesn’t “get”, doesn’t appreciate the movie, you might feel lonely,

or at least out-numbered in these pages. The book’s position is simply that the movie

absolutely, undeniably, and obviously is a masterpiece. And, personally, I have no

problem with that.

This is not an academic treatise; this is a book designed for popular consumption, a book
designed to sell. But it is a smart book -- as befits its subjects -- and the author doesn’t
strive for homey, easy-listening tones.

His vocabulary is large, his approach is serious and adult. 2001 was not a popcorn movie

and this is not a popcorn book. And, no, before someone says so, it’s not an acid-trip book

either.

In a book such as this, a book which delves deeply and minutely into the details of not just

a movie but also into the lives of people -- brilliant, talented people at that -- all manner

of little specks of interest appear. A positive reference to Buddhism and Hinduism in a

chapter on Clarke, a visit to a tiki bar in a Kubrick passage….both give me something to

mention to my sons, one of whom studies both religion and all things south Asian, and the

other of whom is fascinated by “Tiki culture.” You just find the damndest stuff in a book

like this. And in one’s sons as well.

This is also not a jokey book by any means. It’s strictly business, though sometimes

presentedin near-poetic terms. But Benson does manage the occasional, subtle little joke,

even in footnotes (just relax, there are not many footnotes).

For the best evidence of my personal reaction to this book, you should ask those sons of

mine. I’m sure they’d report that they seldom, if ever, saw Dad as enthusiastic, as excited,

and as voluble about anything as he was whilst reading SPACE ODYSSEY. 

At any rate, their obvious amusement at my endless, probably incoherent, ramblings testified

strongly that this reaction was something out of the ordinary.

Benson’s work is overflowing with fascinating history and incidents and anecdotes. A few

tidbits-- The first meeting of Clarke and Kubrick occurred In New York City at Trader Vic’s

(on the very day that the World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadow) and lasted for eight

hours.

Clarke wrote that when they met for the first time Kubrick “was in some danger of believing

in flying saucers; I felt I had just arrived in time to save him from this gruesome fate.”

The company which manufactured the film’s great spacesuits was located in Manchester,

England, England, across the Atlantic Sea, and was named Frankenstein and Sons.

Clarke says that Kubrick, under the influence of a book on cryogenics, was considering

bringing dead astronaut Frank Poole back to life, and that he, Clarke, had to fight “hard to

stop Stan from bringing Dr. Poole back from the dead.”  Especially interesting since

Clarke himself resurrected Poole in his novel 3001: THE FINAL ODYSSEY.

I knew of Kubrick’s fear of flying, but it was fun to learn that both Keir Dullea and Gary

Lockwood were airplane-phobic. As Benson puts it, “The most convincing film about space

exploration ever made would be captained and crewed by groundlings.”

Kubrick on acting: “Real is good. Interesting is better.” If this doesn’t seem to fit the

performances in 2001, it’s certainly descriptive of Peter Sellers and Shelley Winters in

LOLITA, and of Sellers (2/3rds of him anyway) and George C. Scott in

DR. STRANGELOVE, and of Vincent D’Onofrio in FULL METAL JACKET.

I guess you could include Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING in that roll call as well,

though that’s not a performance I’m very fond of.

How does OF MICE AND MEN figure into the book’s story? Well...read it yourself!

Ah hahahahahahah.

Stuntman Bill Weston, who did all the spacewalking and space-dying sequences, and who

almost died himself in the process, remained intensely proud of his part in the movie’s

making. Of working with Kubrick, he told the old Japanese Buddhist tale of the blue-tail

fly, which “can fly along at three miles per hour. [but] he hangs on the tail of a galloping

horse, which will do thirty miles per hour...however exasperating Stanley was, and certainly

how demanding he was, the man was a genius.”

In 1964, Kubrick watched “all” of Toho’s s-f films. The author suggests that MATANGO,

in particular, may have had its effect on 2001, though only in a technical sense.

The fellow who played the lead man-ape from the Dawn of Man sequence, and who

trained and “choreographed” the other ape-men, was a legally registered drug addict,

who lived on massive dosages of heroin and cocaine, occasionally supplemented by

methamphetamines. The man himself estimates that he was taking about thirty times

the amount of drugs used by your typical, average street junkie.

Lots of people know some of the strange story of the film’s music. No less than Alex North

was hired to compose a score. He wrote and recorded forty minutes worth of music for large

sections of the film. But Kubrick didn’t like it. One source said that the director commented

that the music was brilliant, “but it doesn’t suit my movie.” Another person remembered

Kubrick saying of the score, “it’s shit.”

Part of the problem -- maybe the whole problem -- was that Kubrick had fallen in love with

his “temp” score. But even those choices were very much up in the air. When the director

first added “The Blue Danube” to the spaceship scenes, people thought it was kind of cute

and funny. But when he continued to use it, day after day, the whispers started. He’s not

really going to use that, is he?...He can’t be serious about that waltz...

Kubrick himself was anxious about his own choices. When he thought of opening the movie

with the booming drama of “Also Sprach Zarathrustra”, he asked co-workers, “is this great?

Or is it just … too much?”

And his choice of the bizarre Ligeti music drove MGM crazy. They had invested so much

money and time into this movie and now the director was scoring it with weird-ass

experimental music.

Kubrick became so anxious about the music, still looking for a composer who could deliver

what he wanted, that he asked, in all seriousness, ”...should I contact The Beatles?”

Everyone knows, or thinks he knows, of Kubrick’s cruel, monomaniacal, Machiavellian

personality and methods, but this book makes clear that, while there are some bases for

such a reputation, there’s a vast unseen element as well: the dark side of this moon.

Fairly late in the whole process, Arthur C. Clarke received a letter from someone

sympathising with the author over Kubrick’s “insensitivity”. Clarke replied, “I do not

agree with you that Stanley is insensitive to the needs of others -- he is very sensitive,

but his artistic integrity won’t allow him to compromise.” If this seems a pat bit of

diplomacy, the evidence of the book certainly seems to confirm that statement.

Though there were undeniably rough, even sometimes unpleasant, sides to Kubrick’s

approach to people and to work, there are, even more, stunning examples of his brilliance

in working with people, in getting them to do things they didn’t know they could do, in

actually allowing them to “grow” well beyond what anyone might have thought possible.

I honestly think this book could be read only for its peek into the director’s management

style and be useful as a sort of an instructional book on how to lead people. So long, that is,

as one keeps in mind the composer who had a nervous breakdown, the crew chief who had

to quit on doctor’s orders due to the stress, and at least two other employees who essentially

left before they too collapsed.

Okay...sum it up, big guy... This is a freaking great book. Genuinely great.

I fervently recommend it to anyone.  I’d even recommend it to those sad souls who don’t

like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, though I’d be tempted to make some cruel comment such

as “they probably can’t read anyway,” but I won’t stoop to that. Good lord, no, I’d never

say such a thing. Unh-uh.

To punctuate the utter sincerity of my recommendation, I’ll add this: After finishing the

book, I returned it to the library from which it was borrowed. But in the following days,

I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I did something I’d never done before. I bought a copy

for myself. Not a cheaper paperback, not a Used Book, no. I bought a full-priced, brand-new,

dust-jacketed hard-backed edition.

Will I read the book again, now that I own it? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. But if I

only wanted to re-read it, I could simply borrow it from the library again. This went well

beyond that. This purchase was my way of saying “thank you” to author Benson for such

a wonderful gift of reading. And it is also, somehow, some inexplicable how, my notice to

the world that this is a book well worth reading and well worth owning. Somehow, I don't

know, somehow it means that.

I most heartily recommend SPACE ODYSSEY: STANLEY KUBRICK, ARTHUR C. CLARKE

AND THE MAKING OF A MASTERPIECE to everyone. Really. I mean it. Really.